Good and Evil

Back in the Garden... .there was a second tree known as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Although Divine Life is by nature conscious of both Good and Evil, it is not governed by that knowledge.  Divine Life is governed by a consciousness of Life.  It does what is best for the highest quality and purity of Life. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil offered the human race an opportunity to govern existence by their personal judgments.  Humanity would decide for itself what it supposed to be beneficial for Life.  Although humanity was incapable of making the best possible choices for the benefit of Life on its own, that’s what it set out to do.  By eating from this Tree, humanity would declare its independence in judgment.  In other words, they would make choices without dependence on God’s perception or evaluation.  Where God called something “light” we could choose to call it “dark”.  Where God called something “evil” we could choose to call it “good”.  Judgment of absolutely anything would be subject to our own limited personal perception and evaluation.

 The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil did not provide us with any new information.  Humanity already possessed an inner aversion to evil and an inner attraction to good.  God had opened our eyes to the preservation and encouragement of what was good and pure in His own eyes.  A knowledge of Life provided by the edification of the Tree of Life would govern our decisions concerning all of creation.  God ruled creation through us!  This changed when we ate the fruit of a forbidden source.  Our eyes were opened to a new form of government.  The serpent promised Eve, “…when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” Genesis 3:5.  The serpent did not lie.  Upon eating the fruit, humanity’s eyes were opened to the various good and evil choices.  And humanity was subjected to his and her own perceptions.  No longer would a Divine perspective be available.  We were left alone in our own little worlds to govern and make choices.  It sounded like freedom: “…you will be like God…”, but it turned out to be a sentence of death: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,” Genesis 3:7.

Tell me, just how expert are you at determining what is good and what is evil based on your own perspective of what lies bare and open before you?  How well do things turn out when you are left to subjectively judge what should be done with your own or another’s “nakedness”?  I believe that history has only proved that we are in need of a higher perspective than our own to judge what is good and what is evil.  We need the creator and giver of Life to govern its existence, its nakedness….